this is a thread about the new report on how yale university has decided to restructure is graduate programs in the humanities.

here are two teasers from the final report, which purportedly was crafted by committees that included lots of phd student stakeholders (they have their own stories to tell, i will not tell it here)

this plan was actually leaked to the co-host of this podcast at a graduate school teaching award dinner in 2019, when one of the people involved in writing it spilled the details after a couple too many drinks.

i'd introduced myself as someone with a foot in religious studies and a foot in american studies, studying capitalism. they told me i was "exactly" the kind of interdisciplinary student that they wanted to have at yale when they revamped the humanities.

the admin didn't know i was a member of the union and taking notes on everything i was hearing (i think that the teaching awards went pretty rarely to those of us involved in labor stuff, but that's another thread)

anyway, they told me that the long term plan for the humanities at yale was a/ to drastically cut phd programs for "market" reasons, to b/ take those admissions away from departments and centralize them in the grad school, and c/ to make it so phds weren't in stable "fields."

instead, there would be "clusters" of faculty that proposed "interdisciplinary areas" that would "sunset" after a given period of time. the admin gave examples of these: "medicine and ethics," "environment and literature," etc. all were somehow connecting humanities to sciences.

this would make graduates more "market ready" by making the departments themselves -- where you got your phd -- contingent on market forces. consistently, the example of a field that was becoming obsolete was english.

in fact, the mentoring culture in the english department (no shining example, most know) was particularly lifted up as something that this new model would attack. "the market" was apparently a threat to patriarchy.

...just like when yale instituted the policy that for every 7th+ year grad student admitted, a program would lose a first year: the justification was that this would lead to better "mentoring" by advisers. really it just led to competition and shaming of upper-years.

so let's talk about the implications of this revamp.

first, part of the report includes extra funds (still not a living wage) for admits/grads who join the interdisciplinary cluster programs. this means that grads will not be equally funded. this was literally the first provision that @33unitehere fought for when it began.

unequal funding across the grad school -- especially when most people are receiving inadequate compensation -- is toxic. it creates class hierarchies within cohorts. it feeds into the economies of "specialness" and competition break so many students. it is the opposite of access.

second, it's an attack on academic freedom. do we really want humanities scholarship more centralized, when the context is a university known for its elitism, its militant opposition to social movements from within and without, + its barricades against its home city?

departments are no panacea, but they are in some cases a kind of periphery, where it's more possible to put your head down and do some good work--often, work that isn't recognized according to normative standards of value and production as defined by the high-ups

third, this attacks existing disciplines without proposing meaningful alternatives or commitment to sustain any alternatives that do emerge. in fact, doctoral programs are now specifically tagged with expiration dates.

current yale students report that admins have named departments engaged in the interdisciplinary study of difference -- african american studies, wgss, indigenous studies -- as the beneficiaries of the humanities revamp. this is a bait and switch.

it values programs that specialize in minoritized knowledges, that attract queer and BIPOC students not based on their long histories and powerful interventions, so much as **based on their current marketability as the university sees it**

don't mistake this for any kind of long term commitment to black studies, queer studies, latinx studies. it is the use of these programs to implement further austerity, to divide the cohorts, and to contain justice movements.

the university has told you where its priorities are. believe them: https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2021/02/14/admin-shifts-at-least-150-million-to-jackson-institute-ahead-of-school-opening/

Y'ALL. I AM LITERALLY DEAD. *The Undercommons* is cited in the bibliography to this Kill The Humanities report.

Also cited at the end of this report on bringing austerity and "innovation" to the humanities at Yale: Roderick Ferguson's *Reorder of Things," and Kandice Chu's *The Difference Aesthetics Makes." This is not a good thing. This is technologies of capture leveling up.

in conclusion, I started with the story of the drunk dean at dinner for a reason: to underline that this was in the works before the committees were formed to "explore" it. see these AMST heavy bibliographic appendices, meetings of stakeholders, etc. as supplements.

I eventually asked how they'd implement their plan.

"It's going to be controversial," they said.

they said they'd work in steps: they'd tell people closest + easiest to convince first, then form slightly-wider inner "committee" circle to bring on board.

they'd work outward to wider and wider circles until there was enough "consensus" to make this plan public.

this dean was a notorious union buster, but they sure knew how to organize (+ more money + power to make moves).

today they wager they have the buy-in. it's our move.

p.s. I shudder to link this, but here's the report itself: https://image.message.yale.edu/lib/fe311570756405787c1278/m/1/0bfeafd2-c069-43b3-b529-bd6a7460fb89.pdf